May 03, 2013

The Mail Online today has struck upon a new niche in its endless pursuit for opportunities to ogle and judge women:

"For most women a police mug shot is the most humiliating photograph that will ever be taken...But these pictures of 10 women arrested in the U.S. have shown that some women have managed to maintain their looks in their mug shots..."

That's right girls, arrest and capture is no excuse to let yourselves go - because it's not just the judge who's going to be judging you nowadays:

An arresting line-up from the Mail Online.

The whole thing reads like an advert for a specialist dating website:

"Lorena Taverna appears to be pouting for the camera after being arrested for shoplifting while Toni Lee Hopkins does not seem at all intimidated after she was arrested for violating statutes governing sexually oriented businesses..."

Not to mention Rachel Kathryn Lemler who "still looks good" despite being arrested for drink driving. Well done her.

Apr 28, 2013

Over in the US, President Obama has waded into the debate surrounding CNN's craptacular coverage of the Boston bombing and subsequent manhunt. Speaking at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, Obama joked:

"I know CNN has taken some knocks lately, but I admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate."

Zing!

Our very own Piers Morgan (though America, you're very welcome to keep him) was also singled out by comedian and US talk show host Conan O'Brien speaking at the dinner. O'Brien questioned CNN's judgement in replacing "the popular Larry King with one of the scheming footmen from Downton Abbey".

Apr 17, 2013

That basically sums up a pretty bad day at the office for US journalism, because it wasn't just CNN who was making an almighty hash of this story, the misinformation was spread far and wide. Buzzfeed has captured it all here.

Whenever tragedy strikes, the temptation now is to look away from Twitter because in the hours and days following any major incident we tend to see some of the behaviours which consistently let Twitter down - from sensationalist and wildly inaccurate media reports to clumsy ambush marketing attempts and vile jokes or hateful comments.

This has certainly been true of the terrorist attack in Boston. Whatever the motivation there are inevitably those who see a tragedy as an opportunity - to drive web traffic, to sell products, to gain twitter followers or simply to spread hatred and cause offence.

Of course, Twitter remains a powerful source of instant news and communication at such times but that is often lost amid sensationalist misinformation - both wilful and accidental:

More than 1,700 shared the New York Post's misinformation.

As soon as news breaks, people seem unable to resist the urgent need to create a defining role for themselves in the telling of the story, tweeting or retweeting the most alarming details they can find - or think up - in order to set themselves apart from those who are holding out for actual news. People look to flood the news vaccuum with misinformation.

Others meanwhile rush to judgement, shamefully seizing upon the opportunity to give vent to their hateful prejudices. In this instance people were quick to blame everybody from President Obama to North Korea for the terrorist attack in Boston.

And unlike somebody holding forth in a pub pointing the finger at who they believe is guilty - or speculating about a death toll or motive - those sharing ill-informed theories on Twitter can very quickly become part of a gathering storm which has a speed and a scale unseen in the real world.

Inevitably some of the nastiest comments by far on Twitter have come from vile hate mob the Westboro Baptist Church who have threatened to picket the funerals of victims and claim the attacks were God's punishment for same sex marriage.

Marketing opportunity

Another hallmark of major news breaking on Twitter seems to be that there is always at least one brand which inevitably tries to piggyback on public interest in unfolding events to market products or services.

Remember Gap taking advantage of the deadly hurricane Sandy to promote its online shopping services to New Yorkers trapped indoors?

With the Boston Marathon terrorist attack it was food website Epicurious:

Who honestly looked at a tragedy in which people had been killed and thought it was a good opportunity to publicise their recipes and drive traffic to their website? Epicurious - which boasts over 300,000 followers on Twitter - deleted these tweets and swiftly apologised following an angry reaction (hat tip Rich Leigh).

The tweets from Epicurious were certainly stupid but probably crass and clueless more than malicious. We've seen such tweets enough in the past to know somebody will always get it wrong.

However, far more baffling was this attempt to exploit the tragedy, from somebody pretending to be comedian Lee Evans:

15,000 retweets but charities should not hold their breath waiting for the £30,000 - it seems the real objective here was simply to get retweeted.

The sad and desperate behaviour of some people on Twitter is often bemusing to the rest of us, but exploiting a tragedy simply to get retweets for a fake Twitter account is utterly perplexing.

We can safely assume this bogus tweeter will not make good on the sizeable donation owed and they have now deleted the tweet and changed their account overnight.

Human failings

As with most things which occur on Twitter, such behaviour is often an exaggeration of human failings. Tasteless jokes and ideas which might previously have drawn a shocked reaction from just a handful of people down a pub can now reach thousands or even millions of people.

The chancers - from the clumsy and the insensitive to the downright twisted and hateful - who would exploit a tragedy may previously have done so anyway in some real world way, but Twitter makes it easier and increases the reach. The result is often a bad taste left in the mouth and another dent in our faith in humanity.

It seems the Daily Mail has never really been a fan of Mumsnet, but since that incident the paper has published a couple of particularly negative articles about the parenting website.

You may spot a theme in the headlines: There was "Why I hate negative, judgmental Mumsnet" by TV presenter Amanda Holden and there was "Why I hate the smug bullies on Mumsnet!" by journalist Shona Sibary.

Past headlines have also included "I hate Mumsnet: Why one mum thinks the parenting website is smug, patronising and vicious".

But the latest piece has backfired slightly after the Mail was forced to publish a correction and clarification.

Not because Shona Sibary described Mumsnet as:

"...an insidious website inhabited by self-satisfied mothers whose sole purpose in life, it seems, is to lord themselves over other women."

And not because the article referred to Mumsnet members as "monsters" and a "cliquey, elitist bunch of witches".

It wasn't even because the writer suggested "behind closed doors" Mumsnet members are probably all "popping Prozac and deeply resenting the loss of identity and lack of short-term gratification that motherhood brings."

No, it was because Sibary appeared to suggest the level of bullying on Mumsnet may make members commit suicide:

"There's been much in the news recently about... a concerning social network site... that has been blamed for the tragic suicides of several teenagers. Well, welcome to the adult version - Mumsnet."

That has resulted in the following clarification being published by the Mail this week:

"The article may ...have suggested that bullying behaviour by [Mumsnet] users could encourage suicide. We are happy to clarify that no suicides have ever been linked to Mumsnet and that its members offer valuable support to those in distress or suffering mental illness."

You can bet the Mail probably wasn't really that happy about having to publish a clarification.

Apr 11, 2013

The BBC has revealed the breakdown of 766 complaints received about its coverage of Margaret Thatcher's death:

A balanced result? Given how polarised the Thatcher debate was always going to be, it looks like the BBC has done a fair job of striving for balance, annoying the three main complaining groups in almost equal measure. However, there have been marginally more complaints about the coverage being too 'pro-Thatcher' compared to those suggesting the BBC was 'anti-Thatcher' in its coverage.

Apr 02, 2013

According to a report on the Mail Online we are living in a "raunch culture" where "the objectification of women's bodies is having a disastrous effect upon the self-image of girls and young women."

The Mail Online reports:

"Big business is promoting a 'raunch culture' that corrupts young girls, teachers warned yesterday... As a result, girls are becoming fixated with their figures, with many developing eating disorders...

"The bleak assessment was laid out at the National Union of Teachers' conference in Liverpool... An NUT motion stated: "The objectification of women's bodies is playing an ever more horrifying role in society and is having a disastrous effect upon the self-image of girls and young women. Growing up in a world where it is normal for women's bodies to be seen as sex objects affects the way that girls in our schools grow to view themselves and their place in society. Girls are coming under unprecedented pressure to conform with unrealistic physical and sexual ideals and modifying their behaviour because of contact with adult material."

Which makes you wonder, if the Mail Online understands why the objectification of women may be a problem, why does it work so tirelessly to perpetuate it? After all, the Mail Online has shown a fairly single-minded dedication to making itself the go-to website for photo stories passing comment on the weight, shape, size and curves of women's bodies.

At this point it is probably worth looking at a selection of the stories which the Mail Online is running alongside this piece today - though they are pretty tame by the Mail's normal standards:

Although the Mail Online's article makes no mention of the way women are represented in the tabloid media, it does include criticism of the Playboy brand and the way it has crossed over into mainstream media and marketing. Of course, the Mail didn't let that criticism put them off running this breaking news story over the weekend:

Mar 27, 2013

The Daily Mail has covered a planning dispute in Grimsby. Hardly the most interesting of news stories you might think - and you'd be right - but the Mail has certainly tried its best to make the story a little more eye-catching:

Before and after photos show the Apocalypse Now and then...

The story involves a couple's complaint that their old house was torn down by developers a fortnight after they had sold it along with some adjoining land which reportedly had planning permission for two houses.

The demolition of their house was described as being like a scene from Apocalypse Now by an anonymous eye-witness who as luck would have it spoke in headline-friendly soundbites.

Powerless neighbours watched in shock as the machines tore the house down, in a scene they compared to the helicopter attack in cult film 'Apocalypse Now'.

If you haven't seen Apocalypse Now - the scene in question looks like this:

It's unclear exactly how many helicopter gunships were involved in the demolition of the house in Grimsby but presumably a fair few.

The couple whose house was razed to the ground by the massed firepower of the US army, explained that they didn't really want to sell, but the developers made them "an offer they could not refuse" - making it a bit like a scene from The Godfather as well.

"Mr and Mrs Watts said: 'It's horrifying. We are shell shocked. We just can't believe it has happened. It was a beautiful family home filled with memories."

It is indeed odd to think that the new owners decided against maintaining the house as a museum to the happy memories of Mr and Mrs Watts, but this tale of suburban Apocalypse gets even worse.

Because it turns out the developers didn't apply in advance for the proper planning permission to demolish the house ...making it all just like the scene in Star Wars where the Rebel Alliance demolish the Death Star without planning permission from North East Lincolnshire Council.

Mar 20, 2013

The first rule of budget club is you don't talk about budget club until the Chancellor has given his speech. Of course there have been a few leaks over the past few days, regarding what we might expect, but no confirmation as to the exact content of the Chancellor's speech.

Or at least that was the case right up until the Evening Standard jumped the gun and tweeted its front page which contained a raft of spoilers they will have been given under a strict embargo.

As London's evening paper, The Standard clearly cannot risk being left out of embargoed Westminster news, so there then followed a grovelling - some might say over the top - apology from editor Sarah Sands:

"An investigation is immediately underway into how this front page was made public and the individual who Tweeted the page has been suspended while this takes place. We have immediately reviewed our procedures. We are devastated that an embargo was breached and offer our heartfelt apologies."

"Devastated" no less.

The Standard's political editor Joe Murphy also waded in on the apologising and even the apologosing:

The BBC has a list of past budget leaks and the people who have lost their jobs over them, including Chancellor Hugh Dalton who was forced to resign in 1947 after details appeared in print before he had finished delivering his budget.

Mar 01, 2013

Hollywood actor and Hacked Off campaigner Hugh Grant has calledThe Spike a "must watch", Tom Watson MP called it "what the papers say for the modern age" and comedian Rufus Hound called it "excellent".

But don't take their word for it.

This week the satirical media show tackled the misrepresentation of Hilary Mantel, a dodgy exclusive from The Sun's fake sheikh and a selection of stories which really didn't live up to their headlines.

Feb 12, 2013

If you fancy a seven minute burst of irreverent chat about what's been going on in the media this week you could probably do worse than check out episode two of The Spike, which follows hot on the heels of episode one, appropriately enough.

This week's episode tackles a high stakes game of immigration numberwang on the tabloids and offers up some heartwarming Valentine's cards for the media, via the Mail Online's obsession with the car parks of America and a timely revisiting of Paul Dacre's evidence to the Leveson Inquiry...

Perhaps I have been wrong to take my ears for granted all these years. Maybe I was just lucky to be born very fashion forward.

No doubt in the world of fashion and celebrity journalism, words and ideas are kept intentionally simple, the stories generally lightweight.

But there's lightweight and there's jaw-droppingly banal which now appears to be the benchmark for such celebrity filler.

The Evening Standard hit a new low in this race to the bottom on Friday with a story that could only have been of interest to two people at the very most and they both knew about it already because it was about them:

Jan 28, 2013

The Daily Mail's questionable interest in young girls has been well documented but even by its own uncomfortably low standards the Mail Online has turned the creepiness up a notch today with a story about Heidi Klum's eight-year-old daughter, who the Mail thinks is a "leggy beauty":

She's eight-years-old.

In the article itself the Mail Online has four pictures of the eight-year-old girl being picked up from a gymnastics class, wearing gym shorts:

"It looks like Heidi Klum's daughter might be hoping to become a model just like her mother... Heidi's eldest Leni clearly stole the show with her workout attire..."

What "show" is this? She's being picked up from gymnastics in her gym kit?

The Mail's caption writer adds beneath one shot:

"All eyes on me: The eight-year-old showed off her best model walk through the parking lot..."

And when the Mail says "all eyes" were on the eight-year-old girl, what they mean is "a photographer waited outside a kid's gym class to take these photos, knowing we buy pictures of very young girls".

The very young girl in question is doing nothing more attention-seeking than walking out of a gym class in her gym kit, into the no-doubt uninvited glare of a paparazzi's camera yet the Mail's "all eyes on me" premise suggests a child wearing a gym kit to a gym class is somehow shameless attention-seeking by an eight-year-old girl. Similarly, the Mail's suggestion that an eight-year-old girl was doing her best "modelling walk" and also "putting on her best modelling face" are part of the same weak justification.

The Daily Mail does an increasingly implausible job of holding itself up as some kind of moral arbiter yet its online editors seem to see no reason why an eight-year-old girl should be allowed to go to and from a gym class without comments being passed on her body.

Update:The Mail has been roundly criticised online and by its own readers for this article. The best-rated comments posted on its story all make a similar point:

The Mail has responded by removing the phrase "leggy beauty" from the promotion of the story in its right hand column:

The Mail has also removed two of the pictures of the child from its story. However the article still makes for very uneasy reading.

Jan 22, 2013

All of the newspapers today have run versions of the same Prince Harry interview, despite one area covered in detail being the intrusive way he believes the UK press still behave towards him and his family.

"I never wanted you guys to be out here but there was an agreement made to invite you out on the deal that the media didn't speculate before my deployment. That's the only reason you lot are out here."

"I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But at the end of the day I was in a private area and there should have been a certain amount of privacy that one should expect... the way I was treated [by newspapers], I don't think is acceptable."

The Sun has used parts of this quote but edited it carefully to include a further detail about the party guests in Las Vegas which makes it look as though the Prince's ire was aimed at the people who took the photo, rather than the newspaper which put it on the front page:

"Harry ...said he wished that what happened in Vegas had stayed in Vegas.

"Strangers he invited to his Sin City VIP suite last August told how no attempt was made to confiscate their cameraphones.

"But Harry insisted: "I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect."

Readers of almost all papers will have missed out on the Prince discussing the upset and anger newspapers can stir in him:

"If there's a story and something's been written about me, I want to know what's being said. But all it does is just upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do. Not just about me... My father always says, 'Don't read it'. Everyone says, 'Don't read it, because it's always rubbish'."

"I'm surprised how many in the UK actually read it.

"Everyone's guilty for buying the newspapers, I guess, but hopefully nobody actually believes what they read. I certainly don't."

One example the Prince gave of media intrusion was the pressure and press speculation which he says forced the early announcement of William and Kate's pregnancy.

"I think it's very unfair that they were forced to publicise it when they were. But that's just the media for you."

The majority of papers seem to have missed that quote too. And a crack about phone hacking at News International didn't make the cut for many editors.

It's probably safe to say he's not a fan. It will be interesting to see how the media now responds.

Dec 21, 2012

The Daily Mail this week claimed victory in its fight against internet porn.

"Children will be protected by a block on online pornography which parents will have to choose to have lifted, David Cameron vows today... Mr Cameron's intervention follows a concerted campaign for an automatic block by this newspaper..."

And the Mail has been celebrating ever since with a veritable fleshplosion of "nude", "topless", "see-through" and "bikini shoot" photo splashes:

Of course the Mail is allowed to publish such content for kids to enjoy because when it hasn't been lobbying David Cameron to regulate the internet it's been lobbying David Cameron not to regulate the media and its own website.

Moral crusade? It seems more likely the Mail wants just a monopoly on such things.

They now just have to hope the filters they've campaigned for don't block the Mail Online.

Nov 18, 2012

ITV News today ran a story about French footballer Thierry Henry joining Twitter (click here for a screengrab). They also tweeted about it to more than 100,000 followers:

The only problem was, it wasn't actually Thierry Henry. It seems ITV was tricked by a number of people vouching for the authenticity of the account, which had helped it take off so quickly and so convincingly. Former footballer Fabrice Muamba really got things rolling with a claim that Henry had phoned him to tell him the account was genuine.

Former Mirror editor Piers Morgan, no stranger to hoaxes, had also tweeted about the account and expressed his desire for the fake Henry to follow him back. He also shared Muamba's claims of authenticity with his followers and there then followed tweets from a host of well-followed media and sports personalities, including Match Of The Day presenter Gary Lineker mentioning the account.

This curious tale got curiouser still when Muamba subsequently claimed the real Thierry Henry had been in touch - this time by BlackBerry Messenger - to say it wasn't genuine, leading Muama to claim he had been hoaxed by a Thierry Henry impersonator with an impressive contacts book and a similarly impressive impression of the French star.

In the rich and confusing history of Twitter hoaxes, this is certainly a new one.

Of course this isn't the first time people in the media have fallen for spoof Twitter accounts. A recent example included the BBC running a story last month based on a tweet from a fake account in the name of horse racing pundit John McCririck:

And at this point a confession: the Twitter account of this very blog retweeted the McCririck tweet, having followed the link from the BBC's story.

Meanwhile, the fake Thierry Henry packed his bags and ran for the hills the second he was rumbled, leaving the rest of us to wonder why people bother setting up fake Twitter accounts (not to be confused with some excellent parodies, which generally admit very clearly their intent).

Sep 25, 2012

An article from The Guardian's David Leigh has made the case for forcing the public to subsidise the newspaper industry through a tax on broadband. You could be forgiven for thinking this modest proposal is a satire on media intransigence and a sense of entitlement but it seems the author may be serious. At the top of the article we are told:

"Proceeds could be distributed...to protect great journalism..."

It is unclear how David Leigh would ensure it only went towards "great journalism" but that's far from the only problem with this plan:

"A small levy on UK broadband providers – no more than £2 a month on each subscriber's bill – could be distributed to news providers... This would solve the financial problems of quality newspapers, whose readers are not disappearing, but simply migrating online."

Surely that is the content providers' dilemma. How is it anybody else's problem? Newspapers have about as much right to stick £2 on our broadband bill as HMV does to ask for a £2 cut from our electricity bill because the iPods and laptops we're charging have taken a chunk out of their business.

This initiative is never going to see the light of day but as such it is all the more surprising The Guardian ran the article. It makes them look like they have run out of all but the most absurd ideas for making money in the face of very real challenges.

Impossible

Firstly, it's impossible to believe the ISP industry would ever sign up for this. There are lots of reasons why not, from competition issues related to Rupert Murdoch's ownership of newspapers and a major broadband ISP to damaging the marketability of 'free' or very low-cost broadband offers. But the main reason would surely be the precedent it would set. This is a group of businesses which try very hard not to set precedents. If ISPs were to entertain this notion it would open them up to calls from any business who feels the web has made their life tougher: from publishers to pornographers and record producers to film stars.

In fact, movie studios and records labels might expect to jump the queue if ISPs started arranging compensation, because compared to illegal file sharing, news stories being read entirely legimately on the websites they are published on doesn't seem much of an injustice.

Rupert Murdoch

The public may also not take kindly to this initiative. Giving £2 per month to subsidise the business interests of Rupert Murdoch, Viscount Rothermere, Richard Desmond and the Barclay brothers is not going to be everybody's idea of fun. And is David Leigh really going to tell the people of Liverpool that after 23 years of boycotting The Sun, they're now required to give a few quid a year to Rupert Murdoch if they want to access their email?

What about those who don't want to read newspapers online? Or those who say they like to remain in control of which newspapers they help fund. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

Digital inclusion

Importantly, this would also be a blow to digital inclusion. While campaigners work hard to get affordable internet access for all, the media arguing in favour of raising the barrier to entry by £24 per year seems very poorly timed.

Then there are the hundreds of other media outlets who would rightly want to be a part of this scheme. Leigh suggests membership would initially be limited to newspapers but concedes there may be some leeway in the future to reflect the changes which have taken place in the media over the past two decades:

"Other original news providers could subsequently apply to the independent levy board for admission to the scheme, case-by-case. But there would have to be a reasonable size threshold for admission, perhaps set at 100,000 monthly users."

That threshold allows for quite a few popular websites. And all of a sudden £2 per month isn't going to stretch very far. Then what, increase it to £5?

If the problem at present lies with the business model and running costs of newspapers then shovelling more money into the furnace isn't going to fix that. But it does explain why they'd rather it was somebody else's money and somebody else's problem.

There are some who support this notion. Roy Greenslade (also of The Guardian) wrote:

"It's an ingenious thought and it should be given serious consideration. Could this be the magic bullet we've been seeking? I certainly think so..."

A magic bullet? It sounds more like the idea which came after checking down the back of the sofa for coins. Back to the drawing board.